


Just One Thing

by moonlighten



Series: Feel the Fear [111]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Background Scotland/France (Hetalia), Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 04:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11246328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlighten/pseuds/moonlighten
Summary: July, 2013: Wales has spent the past week preparing his house for a visit from Scotland and France. He wants everything to be perfect. Romano's unexpected arrival throws all of his careful plans into disarray.Direct sequel toHere Now.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired, once more, by one of losthitsu's comments!

* * *

 

**July, 2013; Cardiff, Wales**

  
  
  
Normally, Wales does very little to prepare his house for the arrival of overnight guests.  
  
Normally, though, his only overnight guests are his brothers, who wouldn't notice, never mind care, whether or not the towels in his bathroom complement its colour scheme, or the pillows on their bed have been plumped, or, frankly, any effort at all on Wales' part to make their stay a little more comfortable or pleasant. As long as they're fed at regular intervals, provided with a constant supply of tea and/or alcohol throughout the day, and pointed towards somewhere relatively soft to lay their head down at night, then, as far as they're concerned, Wales has discharged his hosting duties with perfect aplomb.  
  
France probably wouldn't notice either, or, at least, he wouldn't be crass enough to mention otherwise - the continued cluttered disorder of Scotland's house certainly suggests a good deal of forbearance on his part when it comes to proper housekeeping - but Wales is certainly acutely aware that his own accommodations fall far short of those offered by France's own immaculately tidy and well-appointed apartment.  
  
Given Scotland's habit of neglecting to inform him that he and France intend on visiting until they're practically in sight of his  house, he's never before been offered the opportunity to remedy his deficiencies on that score. But this time is different; they're attending a concert, and as Scotland had already paid a pretty packet for their tickets, he had absolutely no intention of shelling out for a hotel room, too. He'd had to make actual _plans_ for once, and Wales had been given the unprecedented gift of a week's notice as a consequence.  
  
And he'd made full and efficient use of it. As soon as Scotland had finished informing him that he was coming to stay, Wales sat down and wrote a list of every job that needed doing around his house - large and small - and has been working through it methodically ever since.  
  
He'd bought a bag of France's favourite coffee, a new duvet cover to replace the frilled, floral monstrosity that had been a present from Cerys' mother, and a new set of cutlery to replace the collection of castoffs England had bequeathed him when he first moved to Cardiff.  
  
He'd spent an hour listening to a wine merchant lecture him on climate, soil acidity, and grape varieties so that he could pick out three bottles of wine that might pass muster with France's exacting taste buds, and another hour in B &Q selecting the perfect shade of blue to paint over the virulent and slightly luminous green that the previous owner of his house had inexplicably decided to decorate the larger of his two spare bedrooms with.  
  
His towels now match his bathroom's tiles as well as each other.  
  
He's wiped walls, scrubbed skirting boards, polished mirrors, and dusted every square inch of every room. Slowly but surely, he's crossed off each item on his list save the last two: a last minute run around with the vac and washing the inside of the windows.  
  
Hardly onerous tasks, and with over an hour left to spare, he has plenty of time to complete them, so long as he doesn't have to deal with any interruptions.  
  
Which is why he ignores the doorbell the first time it rings, reasoning that it can't possibly herald Scotland and France's arrival - Scotland might push his horrible little car to its very limits, speed-wise, but unless he's finally found a way to break the sound barrier in it, not even he could make the drive down from Edinburgh in less than five hours - and is more likely to be some delivery person wanting him to take in a parcel for one of his neighbours.  
  
But his visitor is persistent. Their second ring is longer, sounding a little plaintive somehow, and Wales is drawn back towards the door despite himself. It could be Janice, needing his help with a blocked drain, or leaking tap, or...  
  
Or nothing. The jobs Janice asks for his assistance on are never as little as she claims, and he can't afford the delay. He manages to stop himself from reaching for the front door's handle, but can't seem to force himself to turn away from it entirely. If the bell rings again, then he'll have to answer it, as that would seem to signify that he was needed for something far more urgent than menial labour.  
  
The bell not only rings for a third time, but a fourth and a fifth: three short, sharp jabs of sound that make Wales' heart hammer hard in sympathetic rhythm.  
  
He wrenches open the door, expecting to find calamity outside. Instead, he sees Romano, which really isn't that much of a relief.  
  
Wales turns his head aside, screws his eyes closed for a moment, and then looks back again. To his surprise, the scene remains unchanged. Romano is still standing there, hands clenched into fists at his sides and a suitcase at his feet. He's scowling and red-faced, which, charitably, could be attributed to the fact that he's too heavily dressed for the heat of the day in a suit, tie, and overcoat. More than likely, though, he's just annoyed that he had to wait for all of a minute or so whilst Wales prevaricated in the hallway.  
  
Whilst the anger is business as usual, his presence on Wales' doorstep most definitely isn't, and Wales is so thoroughly thrown for a loop by it that all of his normal polite, welcoming blather deserts him.  
  
"Um," he ventures uncertainly. "Hello?"  
  
" _Galles_ ," Romano says; brusque, to the point, and entirely unhelpful. No explanation of his sudden unannounced appearance follows, only the slow, appraising once over that typically accompanies their greetings.  
  
Although Wales is dressed in his shabbiest trousers and shirt, fit only for housework, Romano doesn't even blink until his skimmed gaze reaches Wales' head, whereupon he blinks, stares, and then blinks some more. He takes a deep breath, and his lips part slightly as if to speak, but he remains silent.  
  
Wales can't imagine that he's refraining from passing comment out of any consideration for sparing his feelings; presumably, he's at a loss for words.  
  
"I'm in the middle of cleaning the house," Wales says, hurriedly untying the short, messy ponytail he'd corralled most of his hair into. "My hair was getting in my eyes." He slips out the two clips that were holding back his fringe. They're purple and covered with gauzy pink butterflies; he'd bought them for Cerys not long before they split up and she'd left them behind when she moved out. "I wasn't expecting company yet. Well, I wasn't expecting you, at all. Why are you here?"  
  
"I was just passing by," Romano says, completely straight-faced despite that being a lie so blatant as to be completely risible.  
  
He's never visited except at Wales' behest before, and even then only when Wales has been able to provide an iron-clad reason that he should do so, such as Northern Ireland's cooking lessons or family parties where his absence would be noted and then discussed at great, disparaging length.  
  
Besides which, people don't just 'pass by' with luggage in tow, and there's nowhere he could be passing _to_ that would take him down Wales' street, which is miles away from the centre of Cardiff and leads to nothing but more houses, and then, ultimately, his local supermarket.  
  
Still, he's here now, and there's not much Wales can do about it save slam the door closed in his face, which would doubtless prove unconducive when it came moving their relationship forward in the mutually physically beneficial direction it had been edging towards.  
  
"Fine." He sighs. "You'd best come in, then. You'll have to entertain yourself for a while, though. I really am very busy. I wish you'd called to let me know you might be dropping by."  
  
"I did," Romano insists. "And I texted you, too."  
  
"Right." Wales' phone had been making odd chirruping noises earlier, but he hadn't been able to fathom why. It's brand new, purchased just the day before after his ancient cheap and cheerful flip phone finally lost its tenuous grip on life and gave up the ghost. He'd only just managed to work out how to switch it on that morning. "I've had the washing machine running all day. Must have missed hearing it."  
  
Romano gives him a dubious look, but opts out of pursuing the matter further in favour of lugging his suitcase across the threshold and into the hall beyond. There situated, he studies the freshly shampooed carpet underfoot, and then the newly hung paintings on the walls, with rapidly narrowing eyes.  
  
"Who _are_ you expecting, then?" he asks with a distinct air of suspicion.  
  
" _Yr Alban_ and _Ffrainc_ ," Wales says. "They're going to a concert in town tomorrow evening, so they're staying a couple of nights."  
  
Wales finds himself ruing the nascent friendship that Romano and Scotland had struck up during last month's G8 summit, because just a few, short weeks ago, that news would doubtless have sent Romano fleeing for the hills in horror. Now, he just nods in placid acceptance, robbing Wales of an easy opportunity to get rid of him without having to resort to actually telling him to go.  
  
And he wants to, quite desperately. He'd been anxious enough, with only two months separating him from their next meeting, but a fortnight hadn't been nearly enough time for him to come to terms with the complete farce he'd made of their one night together, or to shore his defences up in anticipation of there perhaps being another.  
  
He's completely unprepared, and at a total loss as to how he should proceed. Given the way their last meeting ended, he supposes Romano might expect this one to _start_ with a kiss, too. He leans in with the intention of giving Romano a peck on the lips, but Romano ducks his head at the last moment, and the kiss lands just below his ear.  
  
Romano's renewed scowl as he scrubs at his cheek with the heel of his palm leads Wales to believe that he is no better disposed towards kissing him than he'd appeared to be in the hotel's car park in Lock Erne, even though they're lacking an audience this time.  
  
Wales had almost managed to convince himself that that had been the reason for his reluctance then, but clearly he was mistaken. It seems likely that he might want to confine such activities solely to the bedroom, which Wales can live with.  
  
It isn't exactly how he'd prefer things to be, but he _can_ live with it.  
  
"Okay," he says, stepping away from Romano, "like I said, I've got lots of things still to do. You know where the kettle is; make yourself at home. I shouldn't be more than quarter of an hour or so."  
  
Realistically, the remainder of his jobs will take at least twice that, and Wales has every intention of spinning them out for the full hour or more until his reinforcements arrive.  
  
He makes a swift about turn before Romano can make any complaints about being expected to prepare his own coffee, and then beats a hasty retreat upstairs.


	2. Chapter 2

Romano foils Wales' cunning plan less than ten minutes later by not having the good grace to sit his arse down and relax as Wales had asked and thus expected him to do.  
  
He instead stomps up the stairs with his usual elephantine tread, and then loiters in the open bathroom doorway, where - if the prickling sensation that rapidly builds at the base of  Wales' skull is anything to go by - he glares at the back of Wales' head with laser-like intensity.  
  
His concentrated silence is very distracting, and Wales can't focus on the task at hand as a result of it. Every time he cleans away one smear from the window, he accidentally creates at least one more with a careless swipe of his fingertips or the side of his hand.  
  
Eventually, he manages to contain the smears to a small patch in the lower left corner of the glass, which is easily hidden by a judicious rearrangement of the bottles set out on the windowsill. It's a shamefully cut corner, admittedly, but as he very much doubts that either Scotland or France will avail themselves of his collection of bubble baths during their brief stay, he's fairly confident it will go unnoticed.  
  
He steps back to admire his handiwork, and then to the left and to the right, to make sure that his shortcomings are successfully concealed from all angles. When he's satisfied on that score, he very reluctantly turns around to face Romano.  
  
He has, it appears, followed one of Wales' suggestions, if not the far more important one of entertaining himself and thus staying out of Wales' hair for the time being.  
  
He's taken off his jacket, coat, and tie, undone the top button of his shirt collar, and rolled his sleeves up to just above the crooks of his elbows. He's also clutching two gently steaming mugs, one of which he holds out for Wales to take.  
  
It's tea of the exact shade of brown Wales likes it best, suggesting that the ideal volume of milk has been added. It's a tricky balance; as little as one drop too many or too few tipping it askew into a mildly disappointing drinking experience. Romano must have a good eye and steady hand.  
  
He's never made tea for Wales either, though, so Wales only takes a small, experimental sip of it at first. It's lukewarm and slightly stewed, but adequately potable all the same.  
  
"Is it okay?" Romano asks, inclining his head towards the mug.  
  
'Okay' is the perfect word for it. Wales nods. "Thanks," he says, and takes another sip as he casts one last, appraising look around the bathroom.  
  
The tiles and mirrors are gleaming; the bath and sink scrubbed to a pure, brilliant white. His bright, fluffy new towels are neatly folded and hung on their rails. Not a thing looks unfinished or out of place, except, perhaps, the toilet roll. Wales' gaze keeps snagging on it, and something about it niggles at him.  
  
"Are you supposed to hang toilet rolls over or under?" he says; mostly just mulling the thought over out loud, and not really expecting an answer.  
  
And for a long while, Romano just stares at him blankly and doesn't give him one, though he does eventually spit out, "What?"  
  
"Toilet paper," Wales repeats. "Over or under?"  
  
"Why the fuck does it matter?" Romano asks; a perfectly reasonable and pertinent question to which Wales' answer would normally be 'It doesn't'.  
  
But now, it seems imperative he makes the correct choice, because he has vague memories of once reading an article that espoused that the wrong one would indicate very unsavoury things about his character.  
  
"Over," he decides after unearthing an equally foggy recollection that the article had ended with the assertion that over-hangers were clearly on the right side of the entire, ludicrous debate.  
  
He quickly scurries off to flip the roll around, and then folds the loose end into the same triangular point that he's seen on display in countless hotel bathrooms over the years.  
  
Romano's expression takes a turn from faint bafflement into incredulity. "Are you doing all this for _Scozia_?" he asks.  
  
Wales snorts. "I doubt he'll notice any of it, and even if he does, he won't give a shit, either way."  
  
" _Francia_ , then," Romano concludes.  
  
"I suppose so," Wales says. "In a way. He always looks after me so well when I visit him, and I guess I wanted to return the favour. But really, I just.. I fancied a change."  
  
It's an idea that's been percolating at the back of Wales' mind all week - even though France was at the forefront all the while - which only becomes fully formed in the same instant he's speaking the words.  
  
Beyond the bare essentials of upkeep to ensure it stayed moderately clean and didn't fall down around his ears in the middle of the night, Wales had done very little around his house in the near-twenty years he's been living in it. Most of the rooms are still decorated with exactly the same wallpaper as they had been when he moved in, he hasn't got around to updating his kitchen despite meaning to do so for at least a decade, and most of his furniture had also been hand-me-downs from England, and had been horribly dated even when he first received it.  
  
Before he started his cleaning and decorating spree, everything had begun to look decidedly shabby, and was so thickly coated with an accretion of useless knick-knacks that he could barely scrape together a square foot of clear, flat surface in the entire house.  
  
Somehow, he hadn't even noticed how many he'd accumulated until he set out to dust them en masse instead of pecking away at the job over the course of a week or two as he usually did.    
  
It had seemed insurmountable until he made the decision to be ruthless and start packing some of them away to join the rest of his store of memories in the attic. Gone was his sizeable collection of tourist-trap love spoons, winnowed down to only a small handful of the best examples of the art. Gone too were the worst of his own attempts at watercolours that had once decorated his hallway and lounge, leaving behind just the one he is least ashamed by.  
  
He'd filled three boxes with books he felt sure he'd never want to read again, given that they were so badly written that he hadn't been able to force himself to finish them in the first place, and donated them to charity, along with all the superfluous kitchen utensils and crockery he never used.  
  
Northern Ireland's recent visit had served him with a fresh reminder that the teapot Cerys had made for him was dangerously unfit for purpose, and he'd packed that away too. He'd ended up removing from display most of the little odds and ends and cheap trinkets that had once belonged to his past lovers, because he realised that being surrounded by such reminders of them day after day was making it harder to move on forward in the direction he knows he must.  
  
His relationships with humans may all have ended unhappily, but they'd felt so much easier, they'd flowed so much more naturally, than the one he's trying to eke out with Romano. But he'd promised himself he wouldn't go back, and whatever the hell it is that's happening between him and Romano is the only prospect on his romantic horizon right now, so he's just going to have to find a way to make the best of it.  
  
And if that means ridding himself of anything that might serve as a temptation to backslide into old habits, then that's how it will have to be.  
  
"What have you got left to do?" Romano asks, startling Wales into the realisation that he'd been standing in front of the toilet roll holder and staring at it absently for far too long.  
  
"Um, the rest of the windows downstairs, and the vaccing," he says. "Oh, and I should probably have a shower, too."  
  
Romano's nose wrinkles slightly. "You _definitely_ should."  
  
Great. So Wales had not only been sporting ridiculous hair and clothes that should have been consigned to the rubbish bin long ago when he greeted Romano earlier, but apparently he'd stunk, as well. It was no wonder that Romano hadn't wanted to kiss him.  
  
"Fine," he says with a sigh, "I'll find the time to squeeze one in, then." Consulting his watch, he's shocked to discover that his overly nitpicky cleaning of the window and vacuous contemplation of the toilet roll had eaten up a surprisingly hefty chunk of his remaining hour. "I'm not sure how, though."  
  
"I'll clean the windows for you," Romano offers.  
  
"You don't have to do that," Wales says, horrified at the suggestion, which he considers a fairly damning indictment of his skills as a host. "You're a guest, too. Sit down, have another cup of coffee. I'll manage."  
  
Romano frowns, and then strides forward, bursting straight through Wales' personal bubble and coming to a halt uncomfortably close in front of him once more. And as had been the case on the other two occasions he'd acted in the same way, the rough set of his jaw and determined cast of his eyes leads Wales to believe that he could well be thinking about punching him.  
  
This time, he does actually go through with raising one of his hands, but he holds it flat-palmed and lax, hanging suspended in the air beside Wales' head. "I'll clean the windows," he says again, and after a momentary hesistation, his hand descends and he takes a loose grip of Wales' shoulder. "Go on" - he gives Wales a gentle push in the direction of the door - "you _really_ need that shower."  
  
When Wales opens his mouth with the intention of mounting another objection to his proposal, Romano shoves him a little harder, and repeats, "Go on," in a sharp, abrupt tone which betrays that his patience is thinning.  
  
Despite everything, they've managed to avoid ever coming to blows thus far, and Wales doesn't want to risk ruining the precarious harmony they've somehow maintained with a petty argument now. He doesn't have time for it, for a start.  
  
Grudgingly, he gives in to Romano's urging, and trudges off to fetch his vac.  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Poor Wales... Started off with the best of intentions, but got a little obsessed along the way...
> 
> \- Speaking of which, the two Wikipedia pages I looked at most recently in the course of research were 'Battle of Baugé' and 'Toilet paper orientation'. The toilet paper one is at least twice as long...

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of Scotland/France, Wales/Romano double dates, but as Wales and Romano aren't quite in the position to do that yet, I decided that I'd try and get them as close to that as possible given where they are now!
> 
> (I decided as well that I didn't want Wales to have to wait until August to meet up with Romano again (and spend the best part of two months worrying as a consequence.)
> 
> (Also, this will be more than one part... Belatedly realised I hadn't set it as having multiple chapters! Should be fixed now, though...)


End file.
